Short Abstract

This panel interrogates energy transition through African ecologies, asking who defines sustainability, who bears environmental costs, and how African knowledge can reshape debates on energy access, development, environmental justice, and ecological responsibility.

Long Abstract

Contemporary energy-transition discourse propagates sustainability as a universal imperative, but dominant analytical frameworks fall short when mapping Africa's unique ecological contexts, socio-political development priorities, energy access challenges and epistemologies. This panel interrogates the normative assumptions underlying the energy transition by examining who defines sustainability, which groups pay environmental costs, and whose ecological knowledge informs policy. The central argument is that a just African energy transition transcends decarbonisation and must balance ecological accountability against the demand for energy access with developmental justice and African agency. The panel draws on critical and interpretive methodology within the environmental-policy and sustainability practice. With a theoretical framework predominantly anchored in African ecological ethics and environmental justice, the model supplements political ecology of energy to explore interdisciplinary interconnections between human–environment relations, distributive responsibility, knowledge and energy governance. It provides a framework for evaluating the potential of imported sustainability models as normative guidance for energy policy, while recognizing African ecological knowledge as a possible source of normative guidance for energy policy. The panel contends that sustainability in Africa is better understood as an ethics- and politics-driven project, sensitive to context rather than a technology-determined transition. It calls for the integration of African ecological knowledge into the energy governance, enhanced community engagement, equitable distribution of environmental and developmental benefits, and acknowledgment of Africa's justifiable quest for reliable and affordable energy concurrent with ecologically responsible behaviour. It submits that the African energy transition must be not just environmentally sustainable but also socially equitable.

Keywords: Energy; Sustainability; Ecology; Justice; Africa

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